Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Eat Less Food

"Eat less food?? But I love food!" This was my reaction about two years ago when I was looking at eating healthier, not looking at saving money. I read in a few different places about how Americans eat more than recommended portion sizes but don't realize it because no one actually knows what a portion size is. So I was seeing that a good place to start when you want to eat better, is to actually just eat less food. So for Christmas or my birthday that year (they're both in December so it's hard to keep gifts straight), I asked for a kitchen scale. My wonderful husband got one for me and I started measuring out portion sizes. Ok, you guys, I really had no idea what portion sizes were! I measured out pasta and realized we'd been eating like a double portion size, probably 4 ounces per person instead of 2. Oh and one whole chicken breast is actually supposed to be two servings of chicken?

So we were feeling pretty good health wise having cut our huge servings down. It didn't take long for me to figure out that this would help us out financially too. When you eat 4 ounces of chicken as one serving instead of 8, you're cutting the cost of your chicken in half. Basically it's 50 cents per serving instead of $1 per serving. When we first started doing this we were eating chicken breasts about twice a week, so cutting our portion sizes down took us from about $400 a year ($2 per pound at eating 4 pounds per week), to about $200 a year ($2 per pound at eating 2 pounds per week) on chicken. It doesn't seem like much over the course of a year, but it's still a difference of about $16 per month, just by eating an actual portion size, not gorging ourselves at every meal. Of course, that $16/month was just the difference in chicken. When you factor in that we ate pork chops a couple of times a month and saw a drop in price there as well, a small change due to cut backs on pasta servings, it all starts to add up.

 Another cut back we made as part of our trying to eat healthier, was on snacks. I am all about the salty snacks, no amount of fruits or veggies can be as satisfying to me as crackers, tortilla chips or pretzels. But we were dedicated to our New Year's resolutions and so we cut the snacky snacks and subbed in carrots, apples, string cheese, etc. Funny thing was I actually just stopped snacking because I don't ever crave carrots or apples and since we didn't have anything else, I just went without. So yay! for my waistline but again, another surprise benefit was to our wallet. It never feels like crackers and the like are very expensive, but it always adds up.

Each week you buy a box of crackers at $2.50 a box and a bag of pretzels for $1. $3.50 a week, that's nothing!  But over the course of the month that's $14ish, and over the course of a year, it's $182! If you still need snacks, some of those savings will be cut down because you'll be buying other things. But, a bag of carrots at $1 for two pounds (if you peel and cut them yourselves) could easily be snacked on by two people for a week. That still saves you $2.50 a week.

It's crazy how much Americans eat without even realizing it. When you first start cutting back on food, you won't be used to it and might feel hungry still, but your body will adjust and you'll feel better! We felt much healthier anyway. And just by eating less, you could save hundreds of dollars a year. 

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Breakfast

I grew up almost always eating cereal for breakfast. My mom was pretty strict about sugar when we were growing up, so it was Cheerios or Corn Flakes or Shredded Wheat, but it was easy, relatively filling and something that we could get for ourselves. When Greg and I first got married, cereal was our staple breakfast. Occasionally we'd have bread for toast and the weekends was usually pancakes or waffles or the like. It didn't take that long for us to realize how expensive cereal actually is for breakfast compared to toast, oatmeal or eggs.

We've started making our own bread now that costs about 40 cents a loaf to make. A loaf of bread lasts us about a week and we usually have eggs with our toast so it's more filling and satisfying. We try and stock up on eggs when they're 99 cents for a dozen which ends up being about 12 cents an egg. If we have toast and eggs every morning, it costs less than $2 to feed us both every week.

Let's say a 21 ounce box of Cheerios has 21 cups of cereal in it (general internet consensus is that 1 oz=1 cup) and costs $3.64 for the box. That's about 17 cents per cup of cereal. To feel as full as I am after toast and eggs, I need at least a cup and a half of cereal. That's a little more than 25 cents a serving, not including the cost of the milk used, but I won't get that picky. So we'll go with 25 cents a serving. For two of us to eat that every morning, it would cost $3.50 a week. Over the course of a year, that ends up being a difference of $78 and we're not even factoring in the cost of milk used for the cereal.

Even if you don't want to make eggs every morning, you could have yogurt or milk to get some protein and it would still be cheaper than cereal. Other cheap breakfast ideas include oatmeal, smoothies (buy fresh fruit in season in bulk and freeze, or buy frozen fruit from Costco, and add spinach or kale to get a serving of veggies), pancakes or waffles made from scratch or a mix, or eggs and hash browns.

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget: Know the Price of Food & Meal Plan

If you want to save money on food, the best thing you can do to cut costs, is to know what food should cost. If you're looking through your grocery ads and you see chicken breasts in there at $2.99 a pound you may think that's a good price since it's in the ad. But, once you start paying attention to the ads, you'll realize that chicken breasts will pretty regularly go on sale for $1.99 a pound or even cheaper once in a while. If you buy 6 pounds of chicken in one go to last you for the month, right there you could save $6 by waiting to buy it when it goes on sale.

Start looking through those grocery ads that come in the mail. Or go online and check the ad for your grocery store each week if you don't get it in the mail. Specifically pay attention to the costs of meat, seafood and dairy. After a few months, you'll start noticing what the good and great prices on certain items are. That's when you should be stocking up on those things. Meat and seafood freeze really well so if ground turkey is on sale for $2.99 a package, which is a good price, buy 3 or 4 packages to last you a month or two. After a year or so of doing this, I decided that aside from seafood or the occasional steak (like once or twice a year), I wasn't going to spend more than $2.99/pound for meat. Pork chops and roasts and beef roasts are usually more than that per pound, so I really only buy those things when they're at or under $2.99/pound. While meat, seafood and dairy are generally the most expensive things you buy, it's also good to know good prices on pasta, canned tuna, produce, etc. Like one of my fast go to meals is baked beans, so when canned baked beans go on sale, I buy 2 or 3 cans so I hopefully won't have to pay full price for them.

Once you know what the good prices are, you can start meal planning based on what is on sale that week. Meal planning is another great way to save money. If you have something planned for dinner every night and everything on hand to make it, you'll be much less likely to eat out. When you look at the ads each week, check what is on sale and base your meals around what's on sale. If drumsticks are on sale for 79 cents a pound plan one or maybe two meals that week using drumsticks. While you're at the store, pick up an extra package of drumsticks to keep in the freezer to use in the future. If you see a good price on shredded mozzarella, plan to do pizza one night. There are lots of different tips out there for meal planning. After a few years of trying some different things, I found my favourite way to meal plan that works best for me.

I set each day of the week as a certain protein and plan a meal for that.
Sunday: beef or pork
Monday: meatless
Tuesday: ground turkey or sausage
Wednesday: seafood
Thursday: chicken
Friday: easy (canned beans, etc.)
Saturday: sandwiches, quesadillas, other easy meals

Once a week I sit down to do my meal planning for the following week. Using the above format I can check what's in my freezer and what's on sale. If pork chops or a beef roast is on sale that week that's the first thing I plan for the week. If neither are on sale I go to my freezer. When I first started doing this I didn't always have something in my freezer, so I'd do another chicken meal to cover that week because chicken is much more affordable than the other proteins so it's always something I have always had in my freezer. From there I can plan the rest of my meals for the week.

I got the free background for this meal plan from Photo by Lukas from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/board-bunch-cooking-food-349609/

Eating (Pretty) Well on a Budget

After a discussion was opened on social media by a friend about food spending, I realized a lot of people like Greg and me, couples with no kids, spend a lot more on groceries than we do, like $100 or more a month. And that doesn't even count the costs spent on eating out. After seeing this discussion, I was curious about national averages. I found this breakdown from the USDA about food costs. Including all our food costs, even eating out, we are about $80 under the low-cost average for a family like us. Looking just at grocery costs, our average monthly grocery cost is about $90 less than the thrifty plan on the breakdown. Obviously, every person's situation is different and not everyone has the time or desire to make things from scratch to save money, but if you want to see about saving a little bit of money on food without couponing, I thought I'd share some of the things we do to keep our food costs down. I'm no accountant or chef and I don't claim to be an expert on budgets, but given that we eat our fruits and veggies, meat and even seafood a few times a month, and spend much less than the national average, I thought I'd share the things we do to keep costs down.

Roasted Red Pepper Feta Pasta

Greg and I have been sick off and on, but mostly on, since early September. We're coming up on our trip to London soon and I was desperate to get feeling better. I've made a similar pasta sauce to this one before, but this has been my favourite version of it. It has roasted red peppers for vitamin C, oregano for some antibacterial action, and garlic and pepper to help clear out sinuses hopefully.

Ingredients:
6 oz pasta
1 T olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1 large roasted red pepper, patted dry and finely minced
3/4 c cream
2 oz crumbled feta
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp dried oregano or more to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile heat oil over medium heat in a skillet. Add garlic and peppers and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Slowly pour in the cream. Add feta and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and let cook for about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper and oregano. Add drained pasta and toss to combine.

Candied Ginger Apple Pie

In September, I made a candied ginger cheesecake and I kind of became obsessed with candied ginger after that. It was sooo good in the cheesecake and I had more candied ginger left from the cheesecake so my mind started racing with the possibilities of what else I could use the ginger in. With my husband's birthday in October and his love of apple pie, I thought I'd try adding the candied ginger to my normal apple pie recipe that comes from my mom's apple crisp recipe. It turned out so well that I made the same pie for Thanksgiving too.

Ingredients:
Pastry for double crust pie
6 cooking apples (I usually use straight Granny Smith, or 4 Granny Smith and 2 McIntosh)
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 T finely chopped candied ginger
1 tsp lemon juice
2 T flour
1 T cream
Turbinado sugar

Lower oven rack to the lower middle position in the oven and preheat to 425. Put a baking rack to warm up in the oven.
Meanwhile, peel, core and thinly slice apples. Add to a large bowl and add sugar, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, lemon juice and flour. Toss everything together to mix well. Either roll out your homemade pie crust and put in pie plate or place store bought crust in pie plate and leave about an inch of overhang. Carefully pour the apples and all their juices into the pie plate. Cover with top pastry crust. Crimp edges and cut vents in the top of the pie. Brush all over with cream and sprinkle Turbinado sugar over top.
Pull out the preheated baking sheet and carefully place the pie plate on the baking sheet. Put the pie on the sheet into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350 and bake for about 1 hour, until crust is browned nicely. Let cool completely before serving.

Pie from Greg's birthday

Pie from Thanksgiving

Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast

I love turkey breasts! They're not difficult to make, it's delicious, you can do so much with it, and the leftovers make awesome turkey sandwiches. For Thanksgiving this year I was really excited to have a dinner with just me and Greg. Since it was just the two of us a turkey breast would be plenty for us and after making a few different ones, I decided it was time to try my own. I picked up a package of fresh poultry herbs at the grocery store that had rosemary, thyme and sage in it and wanted to do a really traditional Thanksgiving turkey this year so those herbs gave me my jumping off point. Plenty of salt and pepper, herb butter, and some veggies made my turkey.

Ingredients:
6-7 pound bone-in turkey breast
10 T soft butter
1 T chopped fresh sage
1 T chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp pepper
3 white onions, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, chopped into 2 inch pieces
2 celery stalks, chopped into 2 inch pices
1 head garlic sliced in half through the middle
2 c chicken broth
Plenty of salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 325. Combine butter, herbs and teaspoon of pepper. In the bottom of a large roasting rack, put 2 quartered onions, the carrots and celery. Add  the chicken broth and put the rack in place over the veggies and broth. Gently pull the skin from the turkey meat and carefully put your hand underneath to loosen the skin all over the breast. Start rubbing the butter all under the skin. Add some salt and pepper under the skin as well. Rub the remaining butter all over the skin and season very well with salt and pepper. Season the cavity of the breast with salt and pepper, add the last quartered onion (you may only be able to fit two pieces of the onion, you can add the other two pieces to the roasting rack) and the garlic halves. Put the breast on the rack and roast for about 2-2 1/2 hours or until the temperature reaches 160, you'll want to check the temp around the 90 minute mark to see where it's at. Let rest for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Cinnamon Sugar Toast Pumpkin Seeds

I never got cinnamon sugar toast for breakfast growing up! It was a dessert until I was a teenager and woke up before everyone else and could sneak a little cinnamon and sugar on my toast in the mornings. It's still one of my favourite treats. The melted butter, crunchy sugar and warm cinnamon is the perfect combo. This last weekend I got a lot of pumpkin seeds from a friend and I was going to roast them up. But since we decided to take it easy on the baked goods before the holidays and I was really wanting something sweet, I decided to try one of my favourite treats as the base for these pumpkin seeds and they were so good! Sweet and warm and crunchy... Yum!

Ingredients:
2-2 1/2 c cleaned and dried pumpkin seeds
3 1/2 T melted butter
1/4 tsp salt
3 1/2 T sugar
1-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Put the pumpkin seeds in a bowl. Combine all other ingredients and pour over pumpkin seeds. Toss to combine and coat the seeds evenly. Spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put in the oven for about 45 minutes. Stir on the tray about every 10 minutes or so to help them cook evenly. Let them cool slightly before diving in.

Honey Rosemary Grilled Drumsticks

Given the amount of work that went into this recipe, which was very little, I couldn't believe how tasty these drumsticks were! We somehow ended up with 3 jars of dried rosemary so we've been trying to add it to everything recently, and when drumsticks went on sale for 89 cents a pound, I figured why not?

Ingredients:
5 drumsticks
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Sauce:
 2 T vegetable oil
2 T honey
1 clove garlic, grated

In a small bowl mix together the rosemary, salt and pepper. Sprinkle liberally all over the chicken. Heat a grill pan over medium low heat and brush with oil. Add the chicken and cook for about 3-4 minutes a side. Turn every 3-4 minutes until cooked through. While the chicken is cooking, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce. When the drumsticks reach about 155 degrees, brush the sauce all over and let cook, turning frequently, until the chicken is cooked through.

Ginger Cheesecake with Pear Topping

I got my first spring form pan a few months ago and have been dying to test it out! But since there's only two of us here, I figured I probably shouldn't make a whole cheesecake just for us to eat. So when we had a church activity coming up and they were looking for people to bring desserts, I knew exactly what I wanted to make! Cheesecake! It probably was a little risky to do this in retrospect since I've never made a cheesecake before and since I ended up making my own recipe on top of that. If it hadn't turned out well we would have just picked something up to bring instead. It ended up being really good though! Not exactly where I want it to be, I'll be testing out some tweaks to make to this recipe later, but in the meantime I wanted to get this written down so I know what to go off of.

Crust:
36 crisp gingersnap cookies
2 T sugar
7 T melted butter

Filling:
3 8 oz packages Neufchatel, softened
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c honey
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 T candied ginger, chopped very finely

Topping:
1 T butter
2 Bartlett pears, peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 T candied ginger, chopped very finely
1/4 c honey or more to taste
1/2 c salted almonds, chopped

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and wrap the outside of it securely with 2 layers of foil. Heat oven to 325.
For the crust, put cookies in food processor and pulse 7-8 times to break cookies up. Add sugar and mix until cookies are broken into fine crumbs. Drizzle the butter with the food processor running on low. Stop mixing as soon as the mixture resembles wet sand. Press the crumbs into a greased spring form pan in an even layer, and gently press up the sides as well. Set aside.
Beat the Neufchatel until fluffy. Slowly add the honey with the mixer running. Add the sugar and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla. Mix well. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix well. Add candied ginger and stir by hand to combine. Pour into the spring form pan. Place pan into a larger pan and carefully add hot water to the larger pan until it goes about 1 inch up the spring form pan. Bake for 1 1/2-1 3/4 hours. Remove from oven and from water bath. Let cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack and then remove the foil. Cool for 1 hour and then refrigerate over night.
Make the topping while the cheesecake is baking. In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add the pears and cook for just about 1 minute over medium heat, stirring well to coat the pears in the butter. Add the honey and stir well. Add the almonds and the ginger and remove from heat. Let cool over night in the fridge. Serve on the side or top the cheesecake with it.

Roasted Fennel and Sausage Pasta

I have really come to love fennel, or anise as they call it here. It's sweet and fresh and crisp. It's delicious raw and roasted. We're big fans of it now. I also have become a big fan of sausage. I never was a huge fan of pork sausage because it felt so fatty, it always made me feel a little sick. But turkey sausage is another matter. You get the wonderful flavour of sausage, but it's so much leaner! Since sausage has fennel in it, I thought it had to be the perfect thing to pair with roasted fennel. This is one of our favourite pasta dishes now and it's so easy and cheap!

Ingredients:
1 large fennel bulb, tops removed (save the frilly green part, called the fennel fronds) and outside, tough layer of bulb removed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
12 oz turkey sausage, casings removed
1/4 c chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil
1/3 c chicken stock
8 oz Penne pasta
Parmesan cheese to top

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. After the top of the fennel and the outside layer has been removed, cut it through the middle and cut the core out of the bulb on both sides. Chop the remaining fennel and put on a baking sheet. Toss with just enough olive oil to coat the fennel pieces and season to taste with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until the fennel starts to look golden.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package directions.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add 2 tsp of olive oil. Add the turkey sausage and break up into small pieces. Once sausage is mostly browned and cooked through, add the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken stock and scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the yummy brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to medium high and cook until all the liquid is evaporated. Add the cooked fennel to the pan and add the cooked, drained pasta. Top with Parmesan cheese and some of the fennel fronds that have been chopped

Sugar Free Peach Crostata

Ingredients:
1 sugar free pie crust, unbaked (I just used my favourite pie dough recipe and left out the sugar)
2 large ripe peaches
1-2 T honey
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Thinly slice your peaches and put the slices in a medium bowl. Taste one of the slices and add honey based on how sweet your peaches are. If your peaches are tart you'll want 2 T of honey, maybe even more. My peaches were pretty sweet so I only used about 1 T. Add the cinnamon and lemon juice and toss to coat the peaches in everything and set aside. Roll out your pie crust to about 10-11 inches in diameter and move to a baking sheet. Arrange the peach slices in the middle of the pie dough, leaving about an inch border around the edges. Gently fold the pie dough border over the peaches and gently press on to the peaches. It's a rustic dessert so don't worry about it looking perfect. Carefully spoon some of the juices in the bottom of the peach bowl over the peaches in the center. I used all of the juice in mine, it was about 1/4 c of liquid. Bake for 45 minutes or until crust is starting to brown and peaches are cooked through.

Cheap Eats: Chinese Noodles

When you're on a budget like we are, a few good cheap meals in your repertoire can really save your food budget some months. This is a dish my mom made all the time when we were growing up and I never really liked it as a kid. But when we were just in Utah visiting my mom mentioned something about Chinese Noodles and I had totally forgotten about them. I thought I would like them now that I'm an adult so I made them pretty soon after we got back from Utah and I did like them! Easy, cheap and not bad tasting either. Not a gourmet meal by any stretch, but what meal is that costs $1 or so a serving?

Ingredients:
2 c water
2 packages Ichiban (or top ramen), broken into fourths
Olive oil
1/2 white onion, diced
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
4 eggs, well beaten
2 limes
Lemon pepper

Add water and seasoning packages from Ichiban to a large frying pan and bring to a boil. Meanwhile heat about a tablespoon of olive oil up in another frying pan over medium heat and add the onion. Cook for a minute or two and add the green pepper. Once water is boiling, add Ichiban pieces and cook for about a minute over medium heat. Flip noodles over and cook for another minute. Add the tomato to the onions and peppers. When the water from the noodles is almost all gone, stir in the beaten eggs. Add the veggies and stir to combine. Season to taste with lemon pepper and lime juice.

Raspberry Coconut Overnight Oats

I used this recipe as inspiration for these overnight oats. The best idea was using all fruit jam as the sweetener! I made some changes because we only keep Greek yogurt on hand but I don't really like the tanginess of it (Greg is the one that eats it) but I didn't want to buy regular yogurt just for this so I used less yogurt and swapped the milk for coconut milk to try to mask the tanginess of the yogurt and it's delicious!

Ingredients:
1/2 c full fat plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 c full fat coconut milk
1/3 c all fruit jam (we have used raspberry but any would be great!)
1 tsp vanilla
1 c rolled oats
2 T chia seeds
2/3 c chopped almonds

In a bowl whisk together the first 4 ingredients. When the jam is all incorporated in, stir in the oats, chia seeds, and half of the almonds. Mix well, cover the bowl, and refrigerate overnight. This makes 4 servings. Use the other half of the almonds to sprinkle on top when you serve it

Cajun Fettuccine

Ingredients:
12 oz dry Fettuccine
1 T olive oil
1 lb peeled and deveined shrimp
Cajun seasoning
Half a small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c chicken stock
1/4 c cream
1 c frozen corn
1/2 c grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, sprinkle one side of the shrimp with the Cajun seasoning, just enough to lightly coat the one side. Drizzle the olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium high heat. Add the shrimp once the oil is hot and cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until opaque. Remove the shrimp from the skillet and add the onion. There will should be brown bits on the bottom of the skillet, that is what you want! Don't clean it out! Cook the onion for a couple of minutes until softened and then add the garlic. Stir and let cook for just about 20 seconds so the garlic doesn't burn and quickly add the chicken stock, scraping up all the brown bits in the pan. Add the cream and stir well. Add the corn and Parmesan and season to taste. When the pasta is cooked al dente, remove it from the water and put directly into the sauce. You want some of the water on the pasta to get into your sauce. The starchy pasta water helps pull the sauce together. Toss it together and add the shrimp back in

Mongolian Beef

Mongolian beef is my FAVOURITE at PF Chang's. It's rich and beefy and just delicious. But to do it on the cheap, I had to learn to make it at home. I have stir fried the beef and I have coated the beef in cornstarch and deep fried it and both are great! Just kind of depends what you want. But the sauce is where that magic happens.

For the Sauce:
1 tsp veg oil
1/2 T ginger, grated
1/2 T garlic, grated
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 lb flank steak
1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3-4 green onions, cut into one inch pieces

In a saucepan, heat the teaspoon of vegetable oil over medium heat. When it is warm, add the ginger and the garlic. Let it cook for about a minute and then quickly add the soy sauce, water, and red wine vinegar so the garlic doesn't burn. Turn the heat up to medium high and add the brown sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, quickly whisk in the cornstarch. Bring to a boil and let it boil for a couple of minutes, until the sauce starts to thicken. Turn the heat off and set it aside. In a frying pan, heat the 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Slice the steak into thin strips. Salt and pepper the meat and add to the oil. Brown the meat and remove from the oil. Pat the meat dry on a paper towel and add to the sauce. Heat it all up and add the green onions and cook for an additional minute.

If you want to deep fry the meat, coat in 1/2 c of cornstarch and fry in 3-4 inches of oil. Let drain on a towel before adding to the sauce.

Pesto Mac & Cheese

Mac and cheese is sooo easy to make from scratch. And it's so easy to change it up! You can do a plain cheese sauce, add some cayenne and paprika for some spice, or add garlic and herbs for something more sophisticated. Add chicken and veggies or just veggies or add nothing! Once you know the ratios for a basic white sauce, the possibilities are endless. Monday nights I try to do a meatless meal for dinner. I had planned to make biscuits and fruit and veggie smoothies but we were prepping for the blizzard Tuesday and it was cold and the wind was howling and all I could think about was a bowl of warm, gooey, mac and cheese. I had some pesto in the freezer and thought it would be really delicious in the mac and cheese so I just went for it! It was REALLY delicious!

Ingredients:
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 c milk
1/3-1/2 c prepared pesto (I was just eye balling as I went along, so just make sure you're tasting as you go along, but you could add as much pesto as you want!)
2 c shredded cheddar (I like my mac and cheese really cheesy so feel free to use less if you want)
Salt and pepper to taste
10 oz small pasta (shells, elbows, etc.) cooked to package directions

In a large sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and let cook for about 30 seconds. Slowly pour in the milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Add your pesto and stir well to combine. Add the cheese and turn off the heat. Stir until the cheese is melted. Season to taste. Pour sauce over cooked noodles.

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

When drumsticks go on sale, it's really hard not to buy them at 69 cents a pound. I am not crazy about dark meat, but 69 cents a pound! I have my family's oven fried chicken recipe that uses drumsticks that I really like and this honey-ginger drumstick recipe that I love! But I always like to try new things. I have made fried chicken only a couple times before and it was good every time, but I always felt like it could be better. So I spent a lot of time reading a LOT of fried chicken recipes. There are so many different techniques. To brine or not to brine? Buttermilk or egg? Breadcrumbs or no breadcrumbs? After lots of research I decided to just go for it!

Ingredients:
12-16 drumsticks
Water
Kosher Salt
3 c buttermilk
2 T Sriracha
Salt and pepper to taste
3 c flour
2 1/2 T each garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika
1 T kosher salt
2 tsp cayenne
1 head of garlic cut in half through the middle, skin left on
Vegetable oil for frying

Place drumsticks in a large bowl (you can use 2 if needed). Measure 4 cups of water and stir in 1 tsp of kosher salt. Pour over chicken. Repeat until chicken is totally covered by water. Cover and refrigerate for about 4 hours. You can let it sit in this solution for as long as over night if you want to. When chicken is almost done in the solution, get everything else ready. In a bowl mix the butter milk and Sriracha together and then season with a little salt and pepper. In another bowl, mix the flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt and cayenne together. Drain the chicken and pat dry. Working with 3 or 4 drumsticks at a time, add to the buttermilk mixture. I let about 4 drumsticks sit in the buttermilk for about 10 minutes. While they were sitting in the buttermilk, I got a sheet pan out and lined it with parchment paper. I also got a heavy bottom pan out and filled about 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Move the drumsticks to the flour and put more drumsticks into the buttermilk. Coat the drumsticks completely in the flour mixture. Put it on the sheet pan to rest. Meanwhile, take the garlic cut in half and put it in the oil. Don't add any heat yet to the pan. Take the drumsticks in the buttermilk and move to the flour to completely coat and then rest on the sheet pan. Repeat until all drumsticks have been dredged in buttermilk and flour. Heat the oil to 325-350 degrees. Once the temperature reaches 325 degrees on a deep fry thermometer, remove the garlic and any skin that may have fallen off and discard. Add 4 drumsticks into the oil. Let cook for 6 minutes on the first side. Turn them to the other side and let cook for another 4-6 more minutes or until internal temp reaches 160-165. (Chicken will come up a few more degrees while resting so I do mine to 160 and let come up to 165) Sprinkle with salt as soon as it comes out of the oil and repeat with all drumsticks. My favourite thing to do with fried chicken is to drizzle it with honey when it's still hot so it just kind of melts over the whole thing... This chicken was so crispy, juicy, and just a little bit spicy. I will probably keep experimenting with fried chicken, but this was an excellent start!

Chocolate Ricotta Pancakes

I had some leftover ricotta from our bruschetta and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I don't have a spring form pan so I wasn't going to do cheesecake and I didn't have enough left to make lasagna. I remembered seeing lots of chefs on Food Network use ricotta in pancakes so I started doing some research to see if I had enough ricotta left to try that out. After reading a dozen or so recipes I finally settled on this chocolate ricotta pancake recipe. I did change it a little bit but not much. I took out 2 T of flour from the 1 1/2 cups and added 2 extra T of cocoa powder so they were extra chocolatey. I also did the orange syrup differently. I poured 1/2 c of pure maple syrup into a small saucepan and peeled two clementines. I put the peels from the clementines in the syrup and heated over low heat while I made the pancakes, stirring occasionally. I removed the orange peel and topped the pancakes with the syrup. These were sooo good! They were fluffy and chocolatey, but not very sweet which I love! They were super moist thanks to the ricotta. We were big fans!

Valentine's Day Dinner

A few months ago, we tried fennel for the first time. We've been trying to try new vegetables and branch out a little and this was one of the new things we tried! We had it roasted in a pasta the first time and it was delish! It was a little sweet and almost spicy in a licorice spicy way. With Valentine's Day coming up I was planning what to make. I do not like going out to dinner on Valentine's Day, it is way too busy for my tastes. So as part of my gift to Greg for the last few years I've made him a fancy dinner. I've always made salmon since it's Greg's favourite so I decided to stick with tradition and make salmon again. I wanted to make it special and fennel came to mind. With citrus being so tasty right now, I thought it would be really delicious with some oranges. Slowly the menu started to come together. The first course was some bruschetta. Toasted bread, ricotta, spring mix greens, pears and a balsamic reduction. Those were a big hit with Greg. But this orange and fennel salad (recipe below) was one of our favourites from the night. Fennel and orange dressed in some lemon and olive oil on top of perfectly cooked, fatty salmon... The crisp fennel and the bright citrus with that salmon was so excellent. This salad will be a regular for us now. For dessert I decided to try something new that I thought Greg would love. He's a big fan of fruit desserts, but especially lemon desserts. I also like lemon desserts but I am a big fan of textural difference in desserts and usually I find lemon desserts to be very one note texture wise. So I decided to try filo dough for the first time and get it nice and crisp to go with some tart lemon pudding. Layers of buttery, crisp filo with pudding in between, topped with whipped cream and a quick raspberry sauce on the side. It was a hit. I already can't wait to use the rest of the filo dough. Recipe/instructions below.

Orange and Fennel Salad
Ingredients:
1 fennel bulb, core removed and bulb chopped
2 clementines, peels removed, sliced into rounds and divided into the small triangle sections
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp olive oil
Fennel fronds roughly chopped (optional)

After chopping fennel bulb and slicing and separating clementine pieces, put into a bowl. Dress with lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. Toss well to combine. Add chopped fennel fronds if desired. Eat plain or on top of salmon, chicken or pork.

Bruschetta:
Bruschetta is so easy and can really be anything you want so there's not much too it! Slice a baguette on a diagonal so you have more surface area on your bread. Lay out on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 375 for about 6-8 minutes per side or until lightly golden brown. Top with whatever you want! This one was spread with a little ricotta, some greens on top, a slice of pear and then some balsamic vinegar that I cooked down. I put about 1/3 c of balsamic in a small sauce pan and heated it over medium heat. Add a little sugar, maybe 1 tablespoon. Cook until reduced by half. Let cool. That's what I drizzled over the top of this bruschetta.

Dessert:

2 sheets of thawed filo dough
2 T melted butter
1 small pkg cook and serve lemon pudding
Whipped cream (I prefer homemade but am not about the stuff in the can!)
Sunny Anderson's 1-2-3 raspberry sauce from here

Make the lemon pudding according to package directions and make the raspberry sauce. Let both cool in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375. Carefully fold one sheet of filo dough in half so it resembles a book (I think we called it hamburger style in elementary school?), then fold in half again but this time the other way (hot dog style from elementary?). And fold in half one last time as hamburger style. Take a 2 inch round biscuit or cookie cutter and cut two rounds from the folded filo. You should end up with 12 thin layers of cut outs. Do the same thing with the other sheet of filo. Take a cookie sheet and brush the whole thing with a layer of melted butter. Take 6 rounds of filo and place them individually on the sheet. Brush with a little melted butter and layer another round on top. Repeat by brushing each layer with some melted butter and then topping with filo until you have 4 rounds in each stack.* Bake in the oven. I checked mine at about 8 minutes and then every 2 minutes after that. I pulled mine out at 12 minutes when they are just golden brown. Carefully remove from the baking sheet and let cool. Carefully place one stack of rounds on a plate and gently spoon some lemon pudding on top. Layer with another stack of rounds and then more pudding. Finish with the last stack of rounds and top with whipped cream. Use as much or as little raspberry sauce as you want!

*Note: make sure you read the instructions on your filo dough. You will want to keep it covered when you aren't working with it as it dries out quickly.

Copycat Rumbi Island Chicken Rice Bowl

One of my favourite places to eat at in Utah is Rumbi Island. I cannot get enough of their teriyaki sauce they have with their rice bowls! As far as eating out goes, it feels like one of the healthier options. Veggies, rice, and lean chicken! Well, I usually get the pork which isn't as healthy... But for this version I made at home, I did use chicken. The veggies, chicken and rice are easy enough to duplicate, the secret's in the sauce! It's sweet and thick... Mmm I love it!

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 small zucchini, cut into half moons
2 cups small broccoli florets
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 cups cooked Jasmine or brown rice
Teriyaki sauce, recipe follows
Olive oil
Pepper to taste

One all your veggies are cut, set them aside. Trim fat from chicken breasts and cut them in half through the middle, a butterfly cut all the way through. Heat a grill pan to medium heat. Brush chicken breasts with olive oil and season with pepper. Brush oil on the grill and grill chicken breasts, about 4-5 minutes per side or until done. Remove from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes. While chicken rests, heat a saute pan over medium heat and put about a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan. When oil is hot, put all the veggies in the pan. Saute for 4-5 minutes until cooked but still quite crisp. Remove from heat. Cut chicken into small cubes. Assemble the bowls by putting the rice in the bottom of the bowl and top with chicken and veggies. Add as much or as little teriyaki sauce over the top as you want.

Teriyaki Sauce Ingredients:
1/3 c soy sauce
2/3 c water
1 1/2 T grated garlic (I like a lot of garlic, so feel free to lower the amount of garlic)
1 1/2 T grated ginger (see note for garlic)
3 T brown sugar
4 T honey
1 T rice vinegar
1 T plus 1 tsp cornstarch

In a small saucepan, combine all ingredients except for the cornstarch. When well mixed, add the cornstarch slowly while whisking. Heat over medium heat. Let come to a boil and boil for 1 minute or until thick. Stir well and let cool before using. I made the sauce before cooking the chicken and then just let it sit while I finished everything else.

Fried Rice

One of my favourite restaurants is Benihana. The food, the environment, it's all great. One of my favourite things there is the fried rice. They cook it in a ginger garlic butter and it is sooo good. I decided to try it out at home a year or so ago because I had leftover pork chops in my fridge as well as leftover rice. I've changed a few things and feel like it's almost as good as Benihana's now. It's a little different because I don't put veggies in mine, but the flavour is there. I have made this with both white and brown rice and we much prefer the brown rice. We've used leftover pork, leftover chicken, and even used mushrooms to make it meatless. It's so easy to change and just use whatever you have on hand. I love topping it with a fried egg no matter what rice or protein I use.

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked white or brown rice, preferably a day old
10-16 ounces leftover cooked pork chops or chicken cut into bite sized pieces
3 T softened butter
1 T grated garlic*
1 T grated ginger
Pepper to taste
1-2 T soy sauce

In a small bowl, combine the butter, garlic and ginger. In a large pan with high sides, melt the butter over medium heat. Once butter is melted, add rice and pork. Stir everything together and then let sit for a couple of minutes to get some texture on the rice. Add pepper to taste. When rice is warmed through and a little crispy on the bottom, turn the heat off and add the soy sauce. Mix well to combine.